The production of permanent gases. such as argon, nitrogen and oxygen from air using cryogenic techniques has expanded almost exponentially over the years. The production of such gases using cryogenic techniques requires the expenditure of considerable amounts of energy given the operational low temperature levels and given the cost of energy required to produce and store the respective permanent gases.
In the storage of liquefied permanent gases or cryogenic liquids, there is a considerable amount of "boil-off" notwithstanding the current state of the art of heat transfer materials for the storage thereof. In the handling and transportion of such cryogenic liquids from the storage tank to tanker cars and to trailers for shipment to users, there is also significant boil-off, again notwithstanding the sophistication of heat transfer materials and equipment. Generally, the vapors resulting from any such boil-off have either been vented to the atmosphere or repressurized in expensive low temperature compressors which are readily subject to frequency failure as a result of low temperature duty. Given the cost of producing such liquefied permanent gases the venting and/or low temperature compression results in an unacceptable economic energy loss considering the constantly increasing growth of the industry.